A tulpa, also known as a thoughtform, is an independent entity brought into being by the. It starts out as an and gains sentience of its own, carries on a life independent of its creator and, according to some, can be seen and heard by others and can affect the world around them. It may come about accidentally, by someone who doesn't realize their powers, or may be created intentionally by one or more people with the hope of it becoming real in order to do things the creator couldn't. The word comes from certain branches of Buddhism, in which a tulpa is an object (usually a living creature) which is brought into existence by sheer will and concentration. Note The word was later co-opted by certain branches of internet culture, where a 'tulpa' (or 'headmate', etc.) is part of a belief system in which people intentionally treat their imaginary friends as sentient beings. In fiction, tulpas tend to be and, though many happy subversions exist.A similar concept originating in 19th century occultism is the egregore, a thoughtform produced by a group of people instead of a single person, sustained by a constant stream of new. And which many modern fantasy works present Gods as.See also, (possible supertrope),.
Contrast, in which someone is mistaken for imaginary;, in which the being is closer to its originator than a spirit;, in which the being is a direct extension of its creator's will;, in which the entity isn't necessarily being 'born' in the sense of constructing its own identity in the process. In, there are two Shinnentai (physical manifestations of unfulfilled desire) that appear in the story. First, the Shinnentai of Chieko Honda, a hotel caretaker who had a relationship with Keiichi's grandfather and manifested out of her desire to ride in his motorcycle, having been left unfulfilled due to her untimely demise. The second one manifests out of a customized motorcycle previously owned by his boss Chihiro Fujimi, who lost it in an accident at the Inoku Radai Circuit, having plunged to the sea after falling on a precipice. The Shinnentai accosted motorcyclists into competing against it.
The Tulpa Effect theory works neatly with the existing mythos of the Slender Man. It allows for readers to acknowledge that the character was.
In, Sternritter V 'The Visionary' Gremmy Thoumeaux can create these as part of his ability. Anything he imagines comes to life, including a fictitious Quincy officer named Guenael Lee, 'The Vanishing Point'. Guenael even attacks Gremmy upon before his existence is dispelled. The tie-in light novel 13 Blades reveals that he created another fake Quincy officer, Shaz Domino, 'The Viability'. However, Shaz was able to use his to replace all of his imaginary cells with real ones and become fully real. Then granted Shaz a real Quincy rank as Sternritter Σ (Sigma).:. This is for the Hellhound, a being that sometimes taunts and sometimes appears to possess Guts.
Given that the world of Berserk runs on the darkest possible version of, it's possible that as opposed to an evil spirit that just took a liking to messing with him, the Hellhound may be Guts' given form. This is also more-or-less the origin of The Idea of Evil. It was born from humanity's collective unconscious, a manifestation of their need to have someone to blame for their problems. Hoo boy,. For a time in, was pestered by an apparition of a female version of himself.
While largely treated as a fragment of Hato's imagination, (her best guess being that she's some kind of ). It's later revealed that she was based on an idealised version of a girl Hato once admired; when Hato realises that said girl is, it results in the appearance of a second tulpa who more closely resembles the actual person. has the titular entities, born from their creators' idealized image of their first crush, but lack the sapience to do things beyond the range of their creator. One of the heroines, Eve, is a Hatsukoi Zombie that managed to gain sentience. Another Zombie, Kyouko, operates under similar circumstances. Stands in are a version of a Tulpa, as aside from a few special cases they are almost completely in the control of their creators and tend not to have distinct personalities aside from whatever personality their User has or ascribes to them. Notable exceptions are Foo Fighters in Part 6 (born from a colony of zooplankton that gained a Stand, rendering the User and Stand basically indistinguishable) and Purple Haze in Part 5 (a Stand characterized by its polarizing mood swings and hesitating willingness to listen to its User's commands when it goes into a rage).
Part 5 also has Spice Girl, who is basically autonomous and fully sentient with her own personality that's somewhat different from her user Trish. And is referred to as 'she' rather than '.
has an example of this in the form of Madara Uchiha, who allegedly manifested his will and created Black Zetsu. However, it turns out that Zetsu isn't Madara's Will at all. The Black Zetsu was born from the will of Kaguya, the mother of the Sage of the Six Paths and the original Juubi. She made the Black Zetsu to work toward her release and Black Zetsu served as the for centuries, corrupting the Sage's elder son to begin the conflict and starting the Curse of Hatred within the Uchiha. The ending of reveals that Lil' Slugger was born from the mind of one person, and his power spread to other minds through rumors. In the anime, the Gym Leader Sabrina manifests her 'inner child' as a with the power to.
She disappears once Sabrina gets over her issues and learns how to laugh again. In, are born from people with, and can grow in strength and intelligence by consuming other oni and spirits. A reveals that Anna once possessed these powers, which lead to her being kidnapped by a powerful oni who referred to her as 'mother'. In the sequel, Hana was granted the ability to summon and channel oni as a for when his life is in danger. In, an alternative and fantastical origin story for Doctor Doom had Mr. Fantastic create him as one of these. In, this is offered as a possible explanation for why there are two versions of Dr.
John Reinhardt. Since the Doctor is imprisoned, he may have created a tulpa double to take his place while he went free.: In the volume 'Alinoe', Jolan, a boy who doesn't realize his extraordinary powers yet, daydreams about having fun with a green-haired, boy named Alinoe. His imaginary friend unexpectedly comes into existence some time later, and quickly proceeds to turn malevolent.: Gods are made from the raw stuff of the by the belief of mortals, and they return to it when their believers forget them.
Thus they must find alternative sources of belief when their religion wanes. A three-parter from Detective Comics in the late eighties saw and fighting an out-of-control Tulpa. Batman also fights Tulpas in Batman Annual #21 (1997) and Batman Eternal (2014-2015). In the storyline, one of the X-Men from the future is 'Ice Hulk', a savage, hulking version of Iceman. It's eventually revealed that the future Iceman learned how to create ice constructs which could act independently of himself, one of which became sentient and impersonated him. Onslaught is this for Professor Xavier.
When Rogue encountered her mother in the realm of dreams, her mother had dreamt an idealized version of her daughter into existence, which had become semi-independent. This dream Rogue wanted to escape to the real world but never could. The real Rogue agrees to absorb her into herself, to finally make her real in a sense. has an alternate reality Superman, created by Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. He only lasts a few minutes, and their attempts to recreate him do not go well for anyone.
In hindsight, handing the patents over to a slash with a severe grudge against the main universes' Superman wasn't the best idea. The 1990's version of the included a young mutant girl named Dorothy Spinner whose super power was to generate such beings.
Unfortunately, she had almost no control of the ability, and her 'friends' tended to be incredibly weird things from the depths of her subconscious mind. In one Silver Age story, Hal rather frivolously conjures up a big goofy monster with his ring, not intending to keep it around more than moment, but then gets knocked unconscious. The 'Chiller Diller' proceeds to cause havoc all on its own, complete with its own.: It turns out that the Plutonian was basically this. Unfortunately, the woman who gave him (unwitting) form was mentally ill and full of guilt over killing her baby.
This did not, of course, help his own psyche later. In the Fidget and Arah displaced are actually the protagonist's Tulpa friends, separated from him and animating the characters physical forms.
In 's Urban Legends verse, a high-tech helicopter, hosts a thoughtform named Angel created by Jane Bethancourt and given strength by the deaths of all but one of the people who worked on her, Hawke, at Moffet's hands. She's a with a to all of the crew and takes the form of a winged wolf. Mary the snowwoman from is Elsa's imaginary friend brought to life years later by her magic. In, Pinkie Pie, Discord, and Nightmare Moon are all revealed to be the products of other ponies' minds.
In the,. It turns out that Pinkie Pie originated as one, being Clover's brought to life by the Wish Spell. The Rumors Parasites from the Rumors Arc are this. While the base organism is born from, they're nothing but a blank slate without a rumor or commonly held belief to give them any sort of form.
The more ponies who believe in them, the stronger they become. They can also be either good or evil., the Slender Man ends up being this in-story, since it would not even exist if not for the many people who. is a short fanfic based off the concept, with some inspiration on the side. has Merton opening a chest full of his old childhood things. Among which is the strange, green-haired imaginary friend Vince, who wants to be Merton's best friend again and wishes to kill Tommy in order to make it happen.:.
Two stories suggest that Time Lords are able to create Tulpas of themselves when close to their regenerations. In K'anpo, a highly spiritually-advanced Time Lord very close to the end of one of his regenerations, posing as a Buddhist lama on twentieth-century Earth, creates a tulpa of his next regeneration known as Cho-je to interact with his followers for him during his final illness. In, an enigmatic humanoid entity known as the Watcher turns out to be an 'intermediate stage' between the Doctor's Fourth and Fifth selves. The Watcher apparently had some level of independent consciousness and to the events that led to the Fourth Doctor's demise. Though the exact origin of the Weeping Angels is unknown, a book about them contains the line 'What if we had ideas that could think for themselves?
What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us.' . The Great Intelligence (as appearing in ) is a strange example; its original form was telepathic snow, but it had no consciousness to speak of until it started parasitically with the human Doctor Simeon. Turns out one of the Doctor's oldest foes was only evil because when it was mostly a blank slate, it connected to a perfectly normal human who happened to be a.
Consequently, the Doctor assumed that Simeon was directing it and pulling the strings, but when he is taken out of the picture, the Great Intelligence reveals that it has grown sufficiently strong that it no longer needs its host, and can now possess and influence other humans under its own power. In episode 'My Imaginary Friend', Shawn's imaginary friend Travis somehow becomes real enough to harass Shawn's brother David. Subverted when it turns out Travis could interact with David because they were both imaginary, as David and Travis are Shawn's respectively. had a variation on the tulpa, this being the unconscious creation of a man that was trapped in a coma. In, it's finally revealed that Abby is a tulpa, created by a woman with reality-warping powers who unknowingly brought her imaginary childhood friend to life as an adult. The titular character in gets a brain transplant from a cartoonist in the pilot. Which causes him to see and interact with the donor's characters.
In the episode 'PK (or Tulpa)', Fi meets a little boy who has created a tulpa he believes to be an imaginary friend who, though invisible to everyone else, is still capable of affecting others, becoming violent and injuring people around him. Two episodes feature beings that appear to work like this, but are actually subversions:. 'Imaginary Friend' has an alien who investigates humanity by manifesting itself as a little girl's imaginary friend Isabella. Naturally, the adults become more and more worried about the girl's mental health the longer Isabella stays aboard Enterprise. 'The Bonding' likewise has an alien take human form to make restitution to a boy whose mother was killed by the weapons of their long forgotten war. At first, the alien only appears to the boy, making it seem like a grief-fueled delusion.
Again, the adults eventually realize what's happening. In, the heroes are investigating a haunted house and realize that a Tulpa is to blame when they see a tibetan sigil on the wall.
The Tulpa is being created and changed by the thoughts of readers on an internet site looking at the symbol as they read various stories about the haunted house in. introduces Diane as a possibly imaginary character, then shows her as a real person.
Twin Peaks being what it is, the truth is much stranger: she's actually stated by name to be a version of this trope, but may or may not have existed as a real person at one point in time. A Tulpa was a on when, in 'Arcadia', the president of a homeowners' association created a tulpa to enforce the neighborhood rules and create a stepford-esque planned community. The monster itself appears as compiled trash in human form and it disappeared when it killed the president. A later episode of the Event Series featured this concept again. This time, it was wielded by a homeless street artist in defense of homeless folks being forcibly relocated by gentrifying forces.
Strangely, despite airing years after the above episode with the Tulpa enforcing the rules of a gated community, Mulder seems to have selective memory (or maybe the show just has selective continuity) and he doesn't recall his encounter with a similar manifestation in the 90s, because he initially dismisses the idea of a 'Tulpa' or 'thoughtform' as a fantasy!. In, the various Urge Wyrms are tulpas of the original Wyrm of balance, embodying the Wyrm's negative thoughts and emotions upon discovering that it was imprisoned in the Weaver's web. Some sources also describe the Triadic Wyrm as a trio of tulpas emanated by the original Wyrm.
In and, the Chaos Gods are tulpas created by the world or galaxy's, respectively, sentient beings. The Chaos Gods congealed out of the collective emotions and impulses of intelligent beings, such as rage (Khorne), lust (Slaanesh), despair (Nurgle), and scheming (Tzeench). Over the eons, the Chaos Gods have gained self-awareness, independence, and immense power. One of the ( and Out) explanations for Commissar Yarrick's longevity is that he was dead a long time ago and the current Yarrick is a Tulpa created by the Ork's reverence of him and their latent psychic power. These aren't limited to the Chaos Gods either.
The Eldar, at the peak of their power, were able to manipulate the Warp via their deep understanding of it to create their own pantheon of Warp deities out of pure belief, who helped strengthen their societies before their fall to Slaanesh. In addition, the Tau and their intense belief in the Greater Good, as well as expanding to include more psionically-active races in their empire (including humans) has also lead to the occasional manifestation of an entity embodying the Greater Good, which has acted to protect the Tau Empire in the Warp. In Buddhist mages create tulpas instead of summoning spirits. And there's a school of thought suggesting that all spirits are actually tulpas, though if that's the case quite a few of them have outlived their original creators. Complicating matters are Technomancers, nobody knows what they are exactly but they share many qualities with magicians and their 'sprites' fill many of the same functions as spirits.
But sprites are definitely created, or 'compiled', by the technomancers who use them. In creating a tulpa is a high level spell requiring mastery of both Mind and Prime magic. Since a tulpa's mind is created by the caster and it depends on the caster for its existence, tulpas are mainly used when a mage needs an utterly loyal servant — which is acknowledged by the as.: Most examples of this are associated with the subsystem:. The astral construct power serves as the psionic answer to, creating a temporary mindless servitor whose abilities and appearance can be customised as the manifester sees fit. A phthisic is an tulpa, usually created by accident from the minds of the insane. It resembles a heavily distorted version of the person it spawned from, and survives by draining the mental energy of other creatures through its fangs.
Shadow Madness: While it does have a presence in its own dimension, this is the true nature of the main villain, The Darg. It escaped into our universe as an idea, and by spreading through the thoughts of humanity it eventually became strong enough to form a physical body. According to some theories, the existence of the character Maria in can be explained by this concept as an eroticized manifestation of James deceased wife. She is briefly playable during the segment included in the re-released: — the title of which itself is suggestive that she was literally conceived from James unconscious desires, specifically his repressed sexual desire concerning his late wife Mary during the progression of her disease. Although Maria physically resembles Mary, their personalities differ starkly, and throughout the game, Maria makes numerous attempts to delineate her individuality and differentiate herself from Mary before James, who is consistently unable to distinguish the two. In, it's possible that Francis 'York' Morgan is one of these created by Zach.
Due to the vagueness of canon, it's a subject up for some debate. It's also possible that he's a. Both games have this, with Guido Kandori reviving as one of these as a rumor in Eternal Punishment, while In Lakech does the same in Innocent Sin. has 'Cognitive Existences', mental copies of another person created in, taking the form of however that particular Palace's owner sees that person. A Cognitive Existence of Ann wearing a bikini appears in her lustful gym teacher's Palace, which shows how he views her as an object of lust. One even serves as the boss of one of the Palaces, specifically the Cognitive Existence of Wakaba, Futaba's mother, is this for Futaba's palace.
It was born from Futaba's fears of her mother hating her due to the lies of authority figures. This becomes a later on first when the Phantom Thieves collaborate with a Palace-owner to create a Cognitive Existence of the protagonist in order to fake his death, and later when Goro Akechi is attacked by a Cognitive Existence of himself, born from how his father sees him as an expendable pawn. The could be considered this; Yaldaboath was born from the Unconscious Collective of Tokyo, from their desires for order and control, if at the cost of freedom.
However, he has his own agenda and does not care much for humanity, fulfilling the independent aspect of this trope, though on a higher scale since he was born from many's thoughts. Another that could be considered would be Morgana, who was born from the hopes of people though he has his own personality of a snarky yet loveable cat. Given that they were born from many instead of one, they may supersede this trope however. The Primals in: A Realm Reborn are at first said to be gods summoned through the ardent worship of the beast tribes (and generous offerings of ), but they are later revealed to be more akin to this; rather than true gods, they are merely myths and legends brought to life through a combination of magic and their followers' beliefs. Some Primals - such as Good King Moggle Mog - aren't even recognised as Primals at first because they're not akin to the traditional elemental gods most Beast Tribes summon, and later in Heavensward, Ysale is able to transform into Shiva even after learning it's not truly the spirit of Saint Shiva, simply because she puts faith in the idea of the being she created herself, rather than the saint.
The discovery of this causes the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to reconsider what they class as a 'Primal', since it could technically be anything someone with enough faith and a large enough reserve of aether could create. In a sidequest, Gilgamesh was able to summon the image of his missing friend as a primal which throws everything they knew about primals out. It turns out that even the two 'gods' of the world, Hydaelyn and Zodiark, are merely two particularly powerful Primals. In the Solipsist class can learn to create Thought-Form warriors to fight for it. Spirits in are dreamworld entities formed from mortal emotions and concepts. Demons are spirits who embody the darker aspects of mortals such as desire, pride, envy, rage, and fear.
Spirits who enter the physical world have an unfortunate tendency to be corrupted into demons since the circumstances behind weakened parts of the Veil (the boundary between the Fade and the physical plane) are usually pretty dark. In, a young sim may receive a stuffed doll in the mail as a birthday gift. At first, it is an ordinary doll, but as the sim grows attached to it, the doll will eventually turn into an imaginary friend that only the sim can see. If the sim continues playing with their friend, they'll eventually receive an opportunity to turn their friend real, allowing other sims to see and interact with them (up to and including marrying them). In, poltergeists originate as the psychic projections of troubled human girls, but become sapient spirits.
The Prismriver sisters are poltergeists, as was the PC-98 exclusive Kana Anaberal., Half-Genie Hero has Holly Lingerbean. She's the memory of a girl who was practically worshipped in Tassel Town, but a century long sandstorm almost caused her memory to be lost. Her tulpa looks to consolidate her existence by erasing people's other memories and leave only herself in their minds, with the help of a memory-eating worm. Tulpa is a game about a girl and, well, and their surrealistic adventure. At one point in, it is revealed that Korekiyo Shinguji has one of these, based off his deceased older sister. He can trigger it at will by removing his mask, revealing that he wears lipstick underneath.
When it becomes increasingly more obvious he is the culprit of the third murder case, Korekiyo starts to have a violent meltdown, but he tries to calm himself down by activating this tulpa.:, is a manifestation of human belief in the divine, good, and justice, which is why the most fervently religious heroes can use This is pretty impressive, considering. In, Ayer's friend/coach/mentor, Bowman, is revealed to be this. Ayer subconsciously created him as a child to externalize his brutal fighting instincts he wasn't able to release due to being born in a rich and refined family. Bowman eventually attempts to take over, so Ayer remains living the life of a fighter, as he has always yearned.
has Deus ESCA, a reality-warping Phantom created by Ardem who believed he was summoning God. Unlike many other examples he does not turn on his creator and is open to reason and mercy (he initially sends the player character back to their own universe because he felt it wasn't his place to judge the citizens of another God's universe). He does however follow his reason for existence (to take control of Earth and prevent its downfall.
Or at least what Ardem interprets as its downfall.) to the letter and tries to achieve it by any means necessary. The 'Half-lives' of are basically this. They're born when a human makes a very strong wish, and are compelled to fullfill that wish (even though many Half-lives ignore what is the wish they're born from).
If a Half-life fulfills the wish, or if the wish is somehow made null and void, then the Half-life loses its purpose and dies - a fate that they accept. In Under the Lemon Tree main character Ben had a posse of six tulpas representing different aspects of his personality. And they could selectively turn invisible so few people knew they were even around. But eventually the author decided they conflicted too much with his religious beliefs and when he relaunched it as he made the posse goblins that imprinted on Ben., a 24-hour comic, has both an evil tulpa committing murders and a benevolent tulpa assisting the protagonist. follows the Slender Man as tulpa hypothesis, and suggests. Unfortunately Slendy seems to see the cast's player characters as kindred spirits and wants to eat soul. In, Jake has the ability to lower Brain Ghost Dirk's fakeness attribute when he does the hope-y thing.
In other words, Jake's mental projection of Dirk can manifest itself in reality. Tulpas appear in, usually created by powerfully willed, creative people. For example, the mythical Spring-Heeled Jack is a tulpa, created by Charles Dickens, and was known in fiction as the Artful Dodger. Others include the 'ghost' of Psion, an Esper whose body is killed but whose mind and powers live on for a time, and a few more who might not last as long. Some theorize that is this — the more you view his videos and believe, the stronger his influence reaches. Explored further in certain Slender Man works which seem to suggest the reason his powers are so incredibly capricious and inconsistent is because everyone has a different idea of what exactly his 'style' is.
One noticeable point this was explored was when a large group of bloggers attempted to all write fictional stories detailing them all wounding the Slender Man, in hopes this would cause him to be wounded in real life. It didn't work. ', a story about an ordinary man who is hired to take part in some sort of a shady experiment that eventually results in an evil clone of him manifesting.
A fair few creepypastas feature imaginary friends who spontaneously gained physical form and became evil, usually as a result of the narrator ceasing to play with them. We Made An Angel is about a village creating an angel through their collective will and feeding it with their. Eventually, it becomes a demon, as they become more and more draconian about keeping it fed, starting with forcing the teens to do it until they all run away, then forcing the elderly to donate until they die from it.
The universe has several entities which could be classified this way:., a classic, Tibetan tulpa turned evil and against its master. Said master happens to be Steve Jobs., a bullied teenager's imaginary friends who are visible to others around him, but can't interact with the world around them in any way, like defending him when being attacked by bullies., an 'unfinished' tulpa whose creator died while making it. The Blog of Kind Psychiatrists describes a case of a tulpa taking over a patient's body in a story 'Stop Tulping!' A girl in her late teens was having relationship trouble and created herself a supporting companion.
Said companion helped her boost her confidence and finally get a boyfriend. Then the tulpa said that since she deserves all the credit for getting the boyfriend, and her creator wasn't using her body anyway, she's taking over. Several days later she released the control of the body long enough for the creator to reach a psychiatrist. The patient was diagnosed with some schizophrenia-related disorder note the authors make a point of not revealing exact diagnoses.
In series on, one theory mentioned is that the modern day incarnation of the Men in Black are tulpas formed by the unconscious mind of the man who first claimed to encounter then in the early 1950s. In the second episode, it becomes a that Ben repeatedly proclaims he knows what a tulpa is, regardless of the actual topic. In episode three, Ben tries to suggest that is a tulpa. After some back and forth, Marcus acknowledges that Ben is probably right about that, at least regarding. is about an orphanage of sorts for a lot of imaginary friends whose creators have outgrown them. They are thoughtforms in that they carry on lives independent of their absent creators, can be seen by others, and can affect the world around them.
Recurring character Nadine from was originally introduced as D.W.' S imaginary friend, and never portrayed as anything other than a product of her imagination. In the more recent seasons, she is depicted as actually existing, putting her into this trope. Similar to the So Weird example, episode 'Imaginary Fiend' involves a kindergartner creating an Imaginary Friend that proceeds to wreak havoc in the classroom. The girls combat it by use of their own Tulpa. 's 'Imaginationland' had the eternal war between fictional good guys and bad guys boil over into South Park's reality - this includes anything from children's show characters, to movie stars, to religious icons.
Unlike most examples, the titular Imaginationland is a parallel universe where the products of people's thoughts exist, rather than them materializing in the 'real' world. As always, there was an analogy/moral beneath all of it - even if it only exists in people's heads, it becomes real by way of shaping people's thoughts and actions, religion and so on included.
is full of these, since Cosmo and Wanda's magic allows them to bring to life anything Timmy wishes for. Melvin: Just because I imagine him doesn't mean he isn't real. In, Tulpa are fragments on one's soul given physical form through the magic of a powerful mage. It is revealed that the Great Mage Sino created three such Tulpa to aid San Lorenzo in times of need; One Tulpa is designed to aid the in defeating an while the other two are blending in with society until they are needed.
Notably Sino does not seem to have a perfect imagination because his Tulpa do not look like what they are supposed to. has Koosie. He's Dee Dee's imaginary friend. At first, Dexter denies that such a creature can exist and tries to demonstrate this by process of elimination, but he admits that he cannot definitively disprove the existence of 'Koosalagoopagoop.' Dee Dee responds by saying ' Koosie appears in that very second and meets every criteria of the trope. In, tulpas are manifestations of people's emotions. They live in the Shadow Realm, and are just as real as anything else on that plane of existence.